The greatest story ever told

On the eve of the film's UK release, Northern Echo columnist Peter Mullen , who has seen the film, says why it's the greatest story ever told.

THERE have been dozens of movies about the life and death of Christ. The first one I ever saw was The Robe, which came out in 1953 when I was an impressionable young lad of 11. It starred Richard Burton and Jean Simmons. Really, it could hardly be said to be a film about Jesus at all, for we never see his face - only his robe handed down from the Cross. This was the model of films about Christ in those more restrained and reverent days. It was not thought appropriate for cinema audiences to look upon the face of the Son of God, even portrayed by an actor.

By 1965 we were allowed to see Max von Sydow's portrayal of Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told. I, along with millions of others, hated this film for its sentimental, chocolate box style: all white robes and the Hallelujah Chorus. There followed the musical Jesus Christ Superstar with songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and a script by, of all people, Melvyn Bragg. Paul Zimmerman wrote of this film that it was: "One of the true fiascos of modern cinema".

I was much more impressed by the Marxist Pier Paolo Pasolini's solemn The Gospel According to St Matthew, which used an all amateur cast for Jesus and his disciples and Italian peasant folk for the crowd scenes. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is clearly influenced by Pasolini's masterpiece, which at least tried to present the gospel story seriously.

The trouble with most films about Christ is that they were made in Hollywood and Americans find it impossible to deal with religious issues without lapsing into sentimentality, hokum and schmaltz. You find yourself laughing out loud at the very bits that are supposed to be most solemn. And then, in order to grab the box office ratings, most directors go out of their way to avoid controversy and, as a result, offer us a Jesus who is as sentimental as they are themselves and utterly unbelievable.

MEL Gibson will have none of this. His Jesus is certainly strong and commanding - almost terrifying. This approach is surely more authentic and true to the gospels. He would have to be a strong personality to get tough Galilean fishermen to follow him. And there was nothing wimpish about a Christ who said of child molesters that "...it were better for them to have a millstone tied about their neck and they were drowned in the depths of the sea." Or who said: "Think not that I come to bring peace, but a sword." Or who said to Simon Peter, his chief disciple: "Get thee behind me, Satan!"

Such authenticity is an improvement on the gooey films that went before. But should authenticity be striven for when it becomes repulsive and sadistic and even voyeuristic and pornographic? The scourging of Jesus and his crucifixion are presented with extreme violence and cruelty. Yes, crucifixion was a terrible torture and death, but did it all have to be depicted so graphically that we wince and are almost sick?

Five hundred years before Christ, the Greeks produced their classic tales of revenge, torture and death. But when a character in a Greek play is being stabbed to death, stuffed alive into a sarcophagus full of knives or having his eyes put out, the action is usually imagined to take place off stage: that is the origin of the word "obscene" - not witnessed.

You can argue all day about the violence, but the issue of anti-Semitism is, if anything, even more difficult. Mel's film is not anti-Semitic. Yes, the Jewish authorities killed Jesus. The Romans did too. But think about it: it had to be somebody - and Jews and Romans were the only nationalities around in that part of the world at the time. If the appalling business had been played out at another point in history - who knows? - the culprits might well have been fishermen from Whitby and haberdashers from Hartlepool.

In order to understand the terrible events surrounding the betrayal, torture and crucifixion of Christ we need to return to the gospels and ask what was their purpose? The gospel writers wrote their stories 30 years and more after the crucifixion and they edited the history of their accounts to suit their own missionary work.

Let us say that Jesus was put to death round about AD 33. The first gospel, St Mark, did not appear until about AD 65. By that time, the apostles of Jesus were having spectacular success preaching the gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus throughout the Roman Empire. So, although it is likely that leading Romans such as Pontius Pilate had a decisive hand in sentencing Jesus to death, the gospel writers were anxious not to show the Romans in too bad a light; and so they stressed the culpability of the Jews.

This does not mean that the gospel writers were base liars. It was a question of getting the balance right - as I said, of editing. If you read the gospels closely, you will find that Jews and Romans alike have their share in the blame for Jesus' death. The Romans may have wanted him out of the way because they saw him as a trouble-causer, a political activist and even a freedom fighter. Jesus did number among his disciples one Simon the Zealot who might even have been regarded as a terrorist by the Roman authorities.

The Jewish authorities, on the other hand, were riled by Jesus because he criticised their hypocrisy. It can't have been very edifying finding yourselves referred to as "...whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness...ye serpents...ye generation of vipers!" Not much gentle Jesus meek and mild in that outburst, is there!

BUT neither the gospel writers nor Mel Gibson's film seek to lay exclusive blame for the murder of Jesus on Jews or Romans. The point about the gospels - and refreshingly about The Passion of the Christ - is that they both say that Jesus died because of the sins of all people. That is to say, the purpose of both the gospels and the film is theological and spiritual. What is being presented is religious truth attached to certain historical events. And this religious proclamation is as important as the events with which it is indissolubly bound up.

The Christian faith represented in the gospels and in this film describes the course of human history in terms of humankind's persistent disobedience to God's will and commandments. The faith says that God did not leave us in our sins but came to save us through the life, death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. You may personally reject this interpretation of our history if you wish. But, like it or lump it, it happens to be the Christian faith - what the book and the film declare.

If you can stand the violence and cruelty, go and see what is a heartfelt and serious film about Jesus Christ. I would say - even better - if you haven't opened your Bible since schooldays, pick it up and read the gospels again. These short accounts are truly the greatest story ever told.

* The Passion of the Christ opens in cinemas on Friday.